Roots radicals
Back together in one room, songs flowing, Wilco determine to reshape country.
By Tom Doyle.
Wilco: Jeff Tweedy (above, left) and co create a musical genre all of their own.
Wilco ★★★★
Cruel Country
DBPM. CD/DL/LP
FOR ALL their love of the genre, Wilco were never really a country band – too grungy on their 1995 debut, A.M.; stretching out into ’60s Beach Boys pop and ’70s Stones-y rock on the multi-directional ’96 double Being There. Twenty-six years later arrives their second twin-disc-length album, hot off the press after being recorded, live in the studio and with few overdubs, in the first months of 2022. But while singer Jeff Tweedy declares that with this twelfth record, for once, Wilco are “digging in and calling it country”, this is far from a rootsy, back-to-basics affair.